I have completed the first circuit of the line-a-day journal I started on Election Day of last year: I am now making a SECOND entry on each page. (I chose this particular cover, but there are many, many, many, many, many options.)
(image from Amazon.com)
It is of course very upsetting to re-read the entries for the days following Election Day. It is not much less upsetting to be adding entries such as “The Supreme Court ruled in the Tr*mp’s favor that SNAP benefits can be halted while he appeals a federal judge’s ruling that he must reinstate them” and “The Supreme Court temporarily allows Tr*mp’s rule that passports can only show the holder’s assigned sex at birth” and “The U.S. has blown up a 10th boat, claiming without proof that it was a drug-running boat—not that that would allow us to blow people up.” But it was refreshing to add “Not only Z0hran Mamd@ni but also Abigail Sp@nberger and Miki3 Sh3rrill won their races.”
This is why I stopped my page a day journal after two years. The previous years were really hard and I didn’t want to be reminded of them. I started on my 40th birthday with the plan to finish this coming January. I admire your dedication.
I think it helps that I am specifically trying to document the suck.
Yeah, I started one of these during a particularly bad year for me. Halfway through the second round I realized it was making my life worse and I set it on fire 😆
There is so much suck! So much. Loads of people did win important races. YAY! And I hope zero of them Fetterman or Murkowski themselves. Because ?!?!?!?!******?!?!?!€£=}¥}=£<
So much suck.
Senator Turncoat (Fetterman) is my Senator. I share your thought of ?!?!?!?!******?!?!?!€£=}¥}=£< about him. And to think I door knocked for the guy. My other senator is Senator Bitcoin McCormick. These are difficult times.
What an interesting way to keep a journal. Like Facebook memories, but analog and private.
YES
This makes me want to give a line-a-day journal another try. I do think it would be interesting to compare, year over year. But I just couldn’t stick to it.
In December I will finish my second full journal, so ten years! I tend to write more personal things rather than news (although I acknowledge that the news, especially these days, IS personal). One benefit to keeping this practice for years is that you begin to see how things that seem HUGE at the time often don’t matter at all even a year later. Although, again, when it comes to these national politics, well, I’m the parent of a trans kid, so I get it. But overall this practice has helped to soothe my ever-anxious heart by reminding me of perspective.
I also enjoy selecting a different colored, special pen for each year of the five. It’s very satisfying when you have a little rainbow of entries!
Ohhhhhhhhh I wish I’d done this!!
It’s not too late — start with the next year!
I tried to do this and kept it up for three days and then forgot for three weeks. I have started doing line a day in my exercise journal, because that is on the table where I do yoga and I see it. I have no object permanence.
It is really hard seeing those memories, especially when we’re still in the suck. I do understand the impulse to record it anyway though. It’s not like writing it down makes it any less real.
I keep a journal of sorts on my political activity, but in a google doc, not in such a nice-looking book as you have. I agree it would be so difficult to read about last year’s election. I worked so hard on it and had such an unsettled feeling leading up to it – and it turned out I was right to feel anxious.
I feel that one very worthy activity for the times we live in is to record what is happening, so I am applauding you for continuing to do so. In the coming years, ordinary people will need to read our personal accounts of living through the suck and how fully sucky it was. The suckitude is immense on many fronts.
This year my journal includes a giant paragraph of all our electoral wins on Nov 4, 2025. At least I had 6 days to be joyous about that before the missed opportunity of the end of the shutdown. Don’t get me wrong, I fully realize we were never going to get the ACA credits extended. But national Dem leaders botched the messaging bigtime related to the end of the shutdown. They should have been shouting from the rooftops about all the bad stuff in that bill and the intransigence of the Rs.